San Diego County Biographies
HENRY CHASE
This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm
One of the reliable pioneer farmers of Perris valley, was born in Attica,
Wyoming County, New York, August 29, 1851. His parents removed to Dale when he
was four years of age. His father, Isaac Chase, was a native of Connecticut, and
removed to New York when a boy. He was married to Miss Sally Benham, who was
born in Attica, Wyoming County, New York, in 1814. They raised a family of eight
children, of which the subject of this sketch was the youngest but one. His
father's death occurred in August, 1885, and his mother died in December, 1865.
Mr. Chase was educated in the public schools at Dale, New York, and when a boy,
worked on the canal, for which he has no reason to be ashamed, as he has had
many an illustrious predecessor who did the same thing. Most of his life has
been spent, however, in farming. In 1875 he came to California and settled in
Westminster, Los Angeles County (now Orange County), where he bought twenty
acres of land, and in two years sold it, and then farmed for four years on the
Centinella Ranch. December 15, 1884, he came to Perris Valley and took up 160
acres of Government land, built his house and barns, and is making himself a
comfortable home that some time in the near future will be worth a small
fortune.
After several years of dreary "bathing" he became desperate, and October
1, 1887, he married Miss Nina G. Green, and he now wonders why he remained
single so long. Mrs. Chase is a native of Massachusetts, born June 10, 1866.
They have one nice girl�Ruby F., born in their present home June 10, 1889. Mr.
Chase is sowing twenty acres of wheat, and the balance to barley. Both he and
his wife are nice people, and are highly spoken of by their neighbors.
SOURCE: An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties
of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower
California� Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. p.- 210-211